Sometimes when I’m on my laptop it randomly freezes (I can’t even move the mouse) and I see the caps lock LED blink. I’m forced to manually turn the computer off (with the button) and turn it back on. I just installed OpenSUSE 11.0 and I have all of the updates.
I have a IBM Thinkpad Z60t. I had to install the madwifi drivers to get my wireless working. Did that have anything to do with it. And to install the drivers I had to install kernel-default. I guess I had kernel-pae before. I’ve been using kernel-default. Is that bad? I only have 1.5gb RAM.
I just want the freezing up to go away.
Hi there,
Kernel-default vs. kernel-PAE should make no difference at all. (PAE just allows you to use greater that 3.5GB of memory, if you don’t have that there is no point for it.)
Did the lock ups start after any particular change - did it run fine before the new wireless drivers? You could unload them (modprobe -r module_name) and see if that works.
With out more info, it is very hard to say. In such a case it is best to work backwards - find what change caused the instability and remove that change.
Sorry I can’t be more specific, but its just hard to say.
Pete
I have a CDMA wireless broadband card that causes these same freeze ups with blinking cap lock lights. The card is PCMCIA-based, but I got an PCI adapter for the card so I can use it in my desktop systems.
I get these freeze-ups in 32 bit, 64 bit, in the laptop and in the desktop systems. I have tried all different kernel versions I could get from the repos, but it still happens.
In my case, I believe it’s the card and / or the wireless signal that’s causing the problem, rather than the kernel version or the OS.
Usually what happens is, my signal gets very weak, and web pages load very slowly then stall. So I disconnect from my provider and about 10 seconds after I disconnect, the system freezes and the cap lock lights flash, forcing me to do a cold reboot.
Sometimes I get a half-dozen freezes in one day, and then I may not have it happen again for a week or two.
I really suspect it may be something my ISP is doing, since it occurs so sporadically. If it was something on my end, I think the problem would occur much less sporadically and with a greater degree of regularity.
It’s possible that the problem might be caused by Kinternet or some other pppd program, since that’s how I establish a connection.
I’m hoping the problem goes away in 11.1, but we’ll see. HTH!